First of all, this is crazy, and so is this, and why even as a journalist-wanna-be, I often find the news so disturbing. Just check out the whole CNN homepage, really, for all the sick and crazy this spinning top has to offer.
I've been going through a serious case of blog abandonment. Really. Anybody still sticking with me out there I give you credit because I am phoning it in all over the place, including here.
I'm struggling through the last two weeks of the semester, trying to get these stories done so I don't have to think about them anymore. I somehow don't think Jane Austen thought that about Emma, or maybe she did. "I say, I'm just going to SLAP an ending on heah so I don't have to THINK about these stupid people anymore!"
This is journalism, though - not ART. (Sorry.) I seem to have lost basic confidence in my writing ability, which is really nice when you're in a program that's supposed to help you become a better writer. I think I just went like three credits over my limit this semester, which turned everything upside down. Last semester I worked hard but it flowed. I kind of volleyed around from class to class but they all fit in my head. My law class was one of my worst academic experiences ever (except for the outcome - a testament to sheer begging and a teensy bit of fortitude) but even that wasn't this bad. I still have SO MANY PICTURES to wade through and edit. My Vietnam story is on its third draft. That's due tomorrow along with a profile that I really wanted to knock out of the park and a Web package too, which I feel completely ill-equipped to do. I hate tomorrow already! Hi tomorrow, Annie lied! Lack of confidence is so AWESOME!
This is what it's come down to: I was in Banana Republic at the mall yesterday trying to sneak photos of labels for a story I'm writing, and the totally cheerful sales guy wouldn't leave me ALONE to do my dirty work, dammit, he just kept trying to engage me in chit-chat about an Earth Day promotion, which is so last month, chief! Come ON.
Anyway, the photos are crap. They won't work. I should have had my teeny point and shoot with me which has better image stabilization but being prepared with the right gear at all times is just not possible.
If I can just make it to May 12 without completely cracking up I'll be in good shape. April was rough. May is proving to be a tiny bit better. I already know that I'll look back on this spring as one of "those" times - 'those" meaning when I was not eating sunshine for breakfast, unfortunately - and that upsets me. Things are happening, things are on the way. I am notoriously bad at waiting for those things, however.
I went and saw the Waifs twice last week because I'm obsessed with their music and I had two friends who wanted to go on separate nights. I'm here to tell you that music therapy is real. I sometimes forget and then I go to shows that make me so much happier than I was before I walked into the place two hours earlier and I'm blown away all over again. Seriously - they're on tour in the States for a good part of the year (and if you're here from the UK/Australia, you already know who they are probably, but they are playing quite a bit and I highly recommend attending.) I actually sang a song I made up extemporaneously into my new favorite thing, an Olympus recorder intended for podcasting but guess what? You can SING into it too. Even if you're not really a "singer."
I did one thing this week that was a long time in coming and I feel good about it. To be a little bit gross, it made my heart fill up, something that was painful all of a sudden didn't seem so much so, and I think I'll be okay from now on.
Speaking of not being okay at all, I'm going to Brooklyn on Wednesday to read at Sarah Brown's Cringe event, which I've wanted to do for a very long time and I'm very excited about. I'll be reading something from my old journals, and finding the perfectly embarrassing moment to share with a room full of people has been an exercise in said embarrassment already. Oh my God. I may post what I read here, may not - depends.
Hard to say.
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